How To Find A Superstar Online Personal Assistant The RIGHT Way, with Tim Francis
Every entrepreneur wants to find an amazing virtual personal assistant who can give them their time (and life) back. You know, the legendary superstar team member who rides a unicorn, disperses magical fairy dust, and transforms problems into profit!
All joking aside, there are people out there who are not only qualified and capable of helping you maximize your business in this way, they will often work for what you can pay them just for the perk of working from home. This episode features Tim Francis, a guy who has been to a stress-induced state of poor health and back again – and was motivated by the experience to figure out the details of building a team that can support his business and move it forward. Listen to this one. It’s worth all the time you can give it.
Your assistant will only provide the amount of value you pour into them
There’s a myth out there in the entrepreneurial community: The right virtual assistant will take things on quickly and make a difference immediately. It’s simply not true. Your online personal assistant will only provide the amount of value that you put into them. That means training – clear direction – empowerment – and more. And all of that comes from you.
Listen to hear how Tim likens the position you are in, to that of a Surgeon, a specialized position that requires help from other skilled individuals in order to make the “surgery” of what you do in your business a spectacular success. It’s a powerful image that can help you rethink your systems, understand what REAL delegation looks like, and build a team that sets you free from the worry, stress, and headache of running things all on your own.
What does it take to delegate to an online personal assistant properly?
After his health crisis, Tim took the time to understand what effective delegation looks like – and one of the most important things he discovered is that there are 4 levels – or 4 types of things – every entrepreneur can delegate. But it takes time and a systematic plan to enable you to get all four of them off your plate. Let’s walk through them…
Simple tasks – these are the one-off items that anyone can do with a very small amount of instruction. As your virtual personal assistant does more of these, he/she will develop the capacity to handle more and figure things out on their own.
Simple decisions – this category is not about tasks, but about making the call when a question or system-issue arises. As an entrepreneur, you want your assistant to be capable of handling these.
Hard decisions – as you can tell by the name, this one is a step or two up the responsibility ladder from the one before. It’s a skill that has to be developed over time, and with your help.
Outcomes – this one is essentially the first 3 types of delegation rolled into one, except that it also includes responsibility for the entire result of a process, event, or plan. Listen to hear how Tim describes it and you’ll get an idea of the amazing things a virtual personal assistant can accomplish.
360 Delegation can help you train your virtual personal assistant properly and powerfully
There are tons of things that you can and should pass off to an assistant, so having enough tasks for them to do is not the problem. Most entrepreneurs have issues when they don’t properly train their assistant. That’s why Tim created his 360 Delegation framework. It involves 3 areas…
- Vision (show them a sample of success)
- Resources required (credentials, money, authority, etc.)
- Definition of “done” (how do we know it’s complete? – sign-offs? etc.)
Every time you delegate something to your assistant, you MUST include all three of these aspects of the task or project for them to be the superstar team member you need. It’s up to you to empower and equip them for success. Listen to learn how to do it!
Once you delegate to your virtual personal assistant the RIGHT way, what should YOU be doing?
Hiring an assistant and training them well is not so that you can sit back on a beach somewhere, sipping drinks. Its purpose is so that you can be released to do the high-level things that make a multiplied difference to your business. What is it that you should be doing?
Strategy – YOU are the one responsible for determining the direction and approach for your business. This can’t and shouldn’t be delegated. It involves high-level skill and requires high-level access to people and resources. It’s YOUR domain as the leader.
When you can free up your time to do THIS, things move forward exponentially – and a virtual personal assistant is the key you’re missing. Don’t miss this episode – it’s full of practical, powerful advice from a guy who has learned it the hard way – Tim Francis.
Outline of This Episode
- [2:00] How Tim got started helping people optimize their time: he screwed up a lot
- [10:27] What does it mean to delegate things properly? Start simple and graduate up
- [17:43] How do you know if the time is right for an assistant?
- [24:01] Lessons learned from being burnt by hiring assistants the wrong way
Resources & People Mentioned
- www.GreatAssistant.com/toolbox
- Tim’s 360 Delegation
- BOOK: The Four Hour Work Week
- TV Show: Suits
- Perry Marshall
- Ryan LaVesque
Musicfor “Just The Tips” is titled, “Happy Happy Game Show” by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
